What Basis, Morality?

The April 2004 cover of Discover magazine poses the
question, “Are Right and Wrong Wired Into Our Brains?” The
article’s author details the work of postdoctoral researcher, Joshua
Greene, who has been studying the biochemical reactions within people’s
brains when they are faced with moral decisions.

As a result of his study, Greene has discovered that
clusters of neurons in the brain begin to react under an MRI scan when people
are making moral judgments. From his perception of this biochemical reaction,
Greene hypothesizes that our moral judgments are not based solely upon reason
alone but also upon emotion. Furthermore, Greene believes that such responses
are the result of millions of years of evolution and that, “A lot of our deeply
felt moral convictions may be quirks of our evolutionary history.”1

Is Greene right? As the magazine asks,
“Are right and wrong wired into our brains?” The inquiry is a false one.
Rather than questioning whether or not evolution has hardwired morality into
our brains, the researcher should be questioning how the evolutionary hypothesis
can claim anything is right or wrong at all.

For an evolutionist, life exists merely as a result of
chance mutations occurring within a chemical “soup.” The
same primordial soup that produced human beings produced plant
life, animals and all of the seemingly infinite varieties of things which
we observe on earth. In such a system, there is indeed no basis for determining
value for anything aside from the shifting sands of human opinion. For
example, one may believe that sending airplanes into skyscrapers is evil
and wrong, and another may believe that it is pleasing to God and correct.
But, without a higher moral code than just one’s own beliefs, how
could anyone be able to say that he or she is right and another individual
is wrong? There can be no such universal principles as “right”
or “wrong” in an evolutionary system as there is no higher
authority for such principles than man himself-who is no more valuable
than his own opinion would deem him to be.

Greene seems to recognize this problem within his evolutionary
framework when he addresses people’s questions concerning morality
by stating that it is simply another biochemical process. According to
Greene, “People sometimes say to me, ‘If everyone believed
what you say, the whole world would fall apart. If right and wrong are
nothing more than the instinctive firing of neurons, why bother being
good?’”

Disturbing as that question is, Greene still insists that this
is what the research indicates. “Once you understand someone’s
behavior on a sufficiently mechanical level, it’s very hard to look
at them as evil,” he says. “You can look at them as dangerous;
you can pity them. But evil doesn’t exist on a neuronal level.”2

Greene is right. Good and evil cannot
possibly exist within a world that defines everything by chance. In his evolutionary
belief system, only (fallible) human preference can determine ideals of right
and wrong, and such preferences may shift from society to society.

Biblical Christians have a much more
satisfying and rational point of view.

In the beginning, a holy and immutable (unchanging) God
created human beings with a sense of right and wrong built into their
very being. This sense of right and wrong is known as God’s moral
law. God, the moral lawgiver, also revealed His moral standards more
perfectly and directly following creation, by way of the Ten Commandments
revealed to the children of Israel and subsequently in the
New Testament through Jesus Christ.

Although man’s moral intuition has been severely damaged
through the effects of sin (from the Curse of Genesis 3), each human being can see right and wrong; we are all without excuse
before God and man for our evil actions.

Evil and good do objectively exist because they emanate
from the fact that there is an unchanging, omniscient (all-knowing), and
holy God. These are not subjective opinions invented and written down
by man. Rather, “good” expresses the innate characteristics
of God Himself that He has built into every human being, and every human
being is responsible to live up to those standards. And the absence of
good defines evil.

But, evolutionary “science” will
likely never recognize this simple truth. While continuing in its quest
to overturn the existence of God in the mind of society, it is inadvertently
revealing the truth regarding the ghastly implications of evolutionary philosophy.
With the Discover magazine article, we are witnessing the “leading
edge” of evolutionary research drawing towards the inevitable and logical
conclusion that in a world without a God there is no objective basis for moral
truth. There is only human preference. A frightening, anarchical proposition.

The question is, will society continue
to blindly follow this flawed theory of origins and life?